I am polishing off a children's book set in the early 1930's and follows a color cast of barnstorming air race pilots (who are also animals; bears, mice, dogs think Disney Tail Spin cartoon). I am stuck on one thing and that is the name of the town these characters live in. Of all things I am drawing a complete blank and can not come up with a name I like. I am looking for something to end in, -field or -ville and ties to aviation, airplanes, sky, clouds and/or speed. The setting is very rural, no big city names here. I would greatly welcome any ideas that you may have to get me unstuck. Free book if you hit this out of the park!
Wheeville Wheefield Aville Eaglesville Glidesville Soarfield Birdsville Pilotsville Windsville Windyville I dunno...
Does it necessarily have to end in -field or -ville? Fly Town came to mind while reading your post. But if you want the ending to be specifically -field or -ville, then maybe Wingfield. I figure if it's a children's book you'd want something easy for them to say and say clearly, rather than struggle over a series of vowels that require a bit more lingual finesse to speak. Kids can say Town by the time they're 1 1/2 (I know because my son has since he was that age and i began reading to him). And Fly is simple and quick to say. *shrug. Just a suggestion
How about Orville (there could be a neighboring town of Wilbur or Wilbur Town? Wilburville? Wilbur City?) or Wrightsville? Yeagertown? Lindbergh? Lindyville?
I recently had an issue naming a city in one my works so I went online and googled for "small towns in USA" since I knew I wanted an artsy-fartsy retirement type town I found Gearhart but since its a real town and I don't like giving my settings real towns unless I know the town first hand I changed it up a bit and call it Greenharde. Try playing around with some actual town names and how they sound what do they sound like and use that similar sound as a prefix to your -field or -ville ending.
Personally, I like the idea of naming it after some famous aviator. Wrightsville Wright City Airheart City (I know her name was Earhart, but kiddos might call that "Eer-hart") Soaring Plains (sounds like "planes") Airheart Plains
It's a children's book so look at it from a child's point of view? If you have any kids around ask them what they'd name a town, children can be quite original in naming things. One day my cousin seen something I was drawing and declared that from that day forth it should be called a "Scoover dog" (I was playing around and drawing a dog in scooba gear for them). If you don't have any kids near by, go to the local library or a book store and look at the town names of kids books. You could also go online and search up the names of famous kids' cartoons and their town names. Then find something from that.
Personally, I like the planeville - though I might add an "s" so that it becomes Planesville. My favorite suggestions were the ones with historical names - the aviators and such... but those might be a bit beyond little kids.
This is exactly why I like the idea of naming it after famous aviators. Sure the little kids won't get it, but the adults reading it to them will. Sometimes it can prompt a parent who likes to impart a lot of information to add who the aviator is while they're reading to the child. Other times a child who is older will suddenly get it if, for example, they're re-reading it to a younger sibling. "Oh! Lindbergh -- like Charles Lindbergh! He was the first pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean alone, you know." That sort of thing can make slightly older kids proud and also make them more on the lookout for tidbits of knowledge that they had previously dismissed or was over their head.
Think of the name of a plant (vine, rose, ivy, lily, daisy, etc). Now add on a simple action verb (run, fly, jump). You can combine to create things like: Flyvine, Roserun, or Lilyjump. And, if you wanted, you could add "ville", or "field". Ex: Flyvineville, Roserun rd., and even Lilyjump Field. (I got this idea from a school project we did, where we had to make up a name for ourselves.)
Keep em coming these are great and giving me several ideas! I do like the idea of naming them after past aviators, this is something I have done when naming a couple characters as well.
This is my choice, but I'd also offer Plainville. Plainville looks like a standard small-town rural-America name, but it works in your situation because of the plain-plane homonym.
